Smolder (Clan of Dragons Book 3)

by Nancy Lee Badger

  Opening her senses, Fiona closed her eyes and stood perfectly still. The thud of a boot to her right made her dash to her left, but not fast enough.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Make haste! Some help here? This human be bleeding all over me,” Dougal called from the tavern’s open door.

  “Gow be injured? I shall call the healer!” Unna lifted the hem of her dress and ran up the stairs.

  Dougal hoped Fiona would not require a healer. As soon as he sat the blacksmith on a bench, and ordered a villager to watch him, he headed toward the door.

  Unna returned. “Where be you going? Dear Lord, where be Fiona? I sent her with a tray of food for Gow!”

  “She be fine. I walked with her to the blacksmith’s shop, and Gow fell at our feet. She made me bring him here and warn all in attendance that a pirate was in the village.”

  A roar echoed through the dining room as the men grew angry, and the females broke into fretful tears. A pirate was never welcome in the village, and Gow was the proof of their ghastly crime.

  The healer padded down the stairs, and cooed and tsked at Gow. “We shall put you back to rights. Unna, lass, fetch me a bowl of cool water, a scrap of clean linen, and me vial of crushed willow bark.”

  “What about some yarrow root? ‘Twill stem the flow of blood, you once told me,” Unna said.

  “A good idea. Hurry.” The healer turned to Dougal, whispering, “I fear the one who attacked this man be bent on hurting someone you love. Make haste.”

  Dougal’s mouth dropped open, and his heart went to his throat. “Fiona!”

  As he ran out the door, racing toward the blacksmith shop, his mind filled with dark thoughts. A pirate would do despicable things to a human female. Fiona did not have the fangs and claws of a wolf-shifter, nor could she sprout antlers to fight an armed foe. If a pirate spilled one drop of her blood, the bastard would never see his ship again.

  Sliding to a stop at the threshold, he called on his dragon senses. Voices echoed from inside the building, somewhere beyond the furnace. He prowled along the outer wall, keeping to the shadows, until he knew how many pirates lurked. Fiona’s scent mixed with the smoke from burning coals, but when the salty scent of a pirate hit him, he stopped. Intent on learning all he could before attacking, he listened.

  Fiona’s voice whispered from across the room, where he suspected she stood closer to the building’s front door. “You have no right to be here, in this village. You and your kind be unwelcome. You hurt the smithy and stole his work. This will not be tolerated.”

  “You talk a lot, wench. I fear you sent for help, so I cannot take the time for this.”

  “I see the fear in your eyes, coward,” Fiona said.

  Dougal gasped, and crawled back to the open rear door. Why was she provoking the pirate?

  “Nay, I fear nothing, wench, but me cohorts await me signal. Later, when the village has fallen under our captain’s control, you and I shall get better acquainted.”

  Dougal growled. The man wanted her. He couldn’t blame the pirate. No one shall dare touch Fiona. She belongs to me. Suddenly, that thought did not sound so foreign.

  “You shall stay where you be. I cannot let you contact others. I have too many friends in Morbhan, and one very special man, and neither you, nor any other brigand, shall hurt them.”

  Be I her special man?

  The pirate was not going to signal anyone, not on his watch. That Fiona also cared about the villagers, made him smile. The swish of a weapon sliced through the air. With his dragon’s ire raised, he roared, and the sound reverberated through the building. The shop walls shook with the thundering sound, and a beam cracked. Bales of hay tumbled from the loft, filling the path between him and Fiona. She screamed from the other side of the mess, while the pirate jumped free and escaped through a window.

  “I be fine, Go after him!”

  Dougal hesitated, but the pirate was getting away.

  “Be you well, love?”

  “Aye, now catch him!”

  Dougal followed the pirate, wishing his wings would sprout from his back, carrying him aloft. From the air, his dragon eyes could easily follow the brigand, but there were too many villagers about. Several pointed in the direction of the main gate, so he picked up the pace.

  He picked up another scent, but keeping the pirate from contacting his cohorts was imperative. If there were others in the village that had mischief on their minds, Wynn or Evan would handle the threat.

  Far ahead, he spied the open gates. Two guards stood arguing with what looked like an old farmer. A wagon with a broken wheel stood to the other side, and the pirate slipped behind it, on his way out of the village.

  “Stop him! Stop that pirate!” Dougal cried, but it was too late. Several armed men circled the fleeing man, and the guards struggled to shut the gates. The wagon stood in the way.

  By accident?

  As he glanced at the farmer, the old man threw off his ragged farm clothes, reached behind his back, and pulled free a curved blade. He shoved it into one of the guards, and blood spurted from the warrior’s chest.

  Dougal roared at the man’s callous regard for the life of another, and tackled him to the ground. They rolled until Dougal’s talons shot out of his fingertips, and shredded his chest. The pirate cried out, then went silent.

  Other pirates, brandishing weapons, poured through the open gate. Like ants scurrying along a log, they climbed over the disabled wagon. Dougal ran after one, and pulled him to the ground. He slashed the man’s chest, and watched the light in his eyes go dark. Snatching the curved blade from his lifeless palm, Dougal sprinted after the others. He counted six or seven, and worried they would slaughter any unarmed villagers. Madness, and a craving for blood, made him swear that if any of them dared to touch Fiona, he would torch the village in order to assure their deaths. Crazed with the possibility of Fiona in danger, he cared not that he might put villagers in peril. If she was hurt or killed, he would not rest, until he killed every last pirate.

  ***

  Fiona wanted to kill the bastard, but he had fled, with Dougal in pursuit. Instead, she shoved aside a broken beam that had landed a glancing blow to her shin, and got to her feet. Brushing straw from her dress and hair, she relaxed. She wasn’t really injured, and was lucky that Dougal’s timely roar did not bring the entire roof down on her head.

  “Dougal sometimes acts without thinking of the consequences,” she muttered, but he would catch the pirate in time, as long as he followed the stench and the bright red sash tied around the bastard’s head. As she walked toward the open front door, the building groaned. No sense tempting fate.

  Raised voices drew closer. Dougal must have gotten Gow to the healer, and spread the alarm. She wanted to help, but paused near the threshold, as something small glittered on the floor.

  “Where did you come from?” She bent and picked up a glittering trinket on a long, thin leather loop. When she lifted it to get a better look, she smelled smoke, and the tang of the sea.

  “I shall take that, lass. That necklace be mine.”

  Fiona grasped the sparkly bit of gold in her palm, and stepped back. When the beam above her head creaked, she stopped. Barreling through the pirate, standing just outside the door, might prove safer than remaining in an unstable building. When he slid a curved blade from a white sash around his waist, a sash matching the one around his head, she rethought her option.

  “I doubt a fine gold trinket as pretty as this belongs around your smelly neck, me lord,” she teased. It was not her best idea, but her words seemed to shock him. She took advantage by turning on her heels, to escape another way. This was a second pirate, meaning the village was in grave danger.

  “I be no lord. You shall call me captain.”

  To escape, she would have to scramble over hay and broken beams, but she knew the building had a rear door, since Dougal had run that way. She prayed no other beams tumbled down until she made it outside safely.

  The pirate f
ollowed, shouting curses. What little she’d glimpsed of him, through the thickening smoke, was less than impressive. He’d barely tamed his long, mousy brown hair with the white head scarf. A circular hoop dangled from one earlobe, and he glared at her with mud-brown eyes. Nearing the furnace, she paused to catch her breath, but the smoke had increased.

  He grinned and stepped closer. “A black-haired wench stole that necklace from me, after I took something of hers. I planned to meet her here, at Beltane, to get me property returned.”

  “You plan to return her property?” She doubted he would.

  “Give me the necklace, or I shall slit your throat.”

  A thick cloud of smoke made finding the door impossible. A bale of straw must have fallen into hot cinders. She opened her senses, twitched her nose, and searched for the cleaner air of outside. She could use a little help, but a bale of hay beside her burst into flames.

  Risking her life over a tiny trinket wasn’t smart, but she suspected the pirate was not the one who’d attacked Gow. Dougal had chased after that man.

  Pirates hoarded treasure. Was the trinket his by rights? Worse, how did at least two pirates get into the guarded village? Well, he wasn’t getting her, or the glittering item in her fist.

  A necklace, he called it?

  She had noticed several human females, dressed finer than farmers and servants, who wore similar trinkets around their necks. Others wore strings of tiny shells or bits of bone, dyed with berries, to decorate the pale skin above their breasts.

  Since many of the human males smiled and stared at the trinkets, hanging above the female’s low-cut bodices, who was she to say a necklace had no value? The one she slipped inside her bodice had glittered more than shells or colored bits of bones, so the pirate wished it returned.

  She’d stopped to catch her breath, but the pungent smoke was filling her lungs. Until she found out more, he wasn’t getting anything from her. Blindly, she turned to run through the smoke to the hidden door.

  “Oof!” Fiona’s hem caught on a nail, and she lost her balance. Her arms flew out to her sides, and her left hand slid against something hot. “Ouch!”

  “Gotcha!” A hairy arm wrapped around her waist. Her skirt ripped, and her burned hand throbbed, but she fought with determination and anger. Baring her teeth, she searched for a piece of flesh, and wished she had fangs like a dragon. Kicking with human toes inside leather footwear wasn’t much better, so she scratched at his face with her one good hand.

  He cursed and shook her, jarring her off her feet. He fell on top of her, on the floor. The smoke was less dense, there. She could see a little better, so she targeted his face. Two hands would do more damage, but her left hand had gone limp.

  The pirate was anything but limp.

  Something long and hard pressed against Fiona’s belly, and she opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of that. She never got the chance. He covered her mouth with one hand, and his other dug inside her bodice for the necklace. Anger turned to fear. She couldn’t breathe.

  “I want that necklace, wench. Stop kicking me!”

  Fiona hadn’t realized her legs were kicking him. Even her burned palm couldn’t keep her from punching him. When she raised a knee, and connected with his manly bits, his gasp caused him to inhale a mouthful of thick smoke. Gasping and coughing, he rolled off her, and she twisted onto her stomach. With her chin close to the floor, she surveyed her predicament. Her sense of direction was gone, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She still had the necklace, but she needed air.

  “Come with me.” Another set of hands wrapped around her calf.

  Fiona’s first instinct was to lash out, and kick free, but the voice was soft, and definitely female. “I need…air!”

  “Then you need to come with me, lass. Crawl this way!”

  Coughing hard, with tears blurring her vision, Fiona managed to twist and face the opposite direction, following the female’s sooty bare feet. They climbed over fallen beams, and Fiona bit her lip every time she put weight on her left hand. A wisp of clean air ahead made her grit her teeth, and crawl.

  When her fingers clawed the open door’s wooden threshold, she gathered her feet under her, and ran into the night. Cold fresh air filled her grateful lungs, and she wiped the burning tears from her eyes with the back of her uninjured hand.

  “Fiona!”

  Dougal was beside her before she could speak, holding her shoulders. All she wanted, was for him to gather her close, and prove to her that she was safe. “Smoke. Can barely breathe.”

  He slid his big hands down her arms, checking for injuries, and his fingers slid over the burnt flesh. “You be hurt.”

  Dozens of villagers appeared, some carrying buckets of water, and others with thick blankets, possibly to suffocate the flames. She hadn’t seen much of a fire, besides the bale of hay, but there was too much smoke. Had someone set fire to the blacksmith’s shop, or had Dougal’s roar caused more flammable bales to fall onto hot cinders?

  “There might still be a man inside,” she said, coughing, “I think he be a pirate. He chased me.”

  Dougal patted her on the back. “I spied a pretty lass emerge from the building, with you on her heels. A friend?”

  She shook her head, because words would not come. She concentrated on filling her lungs with clean air, leaning against Dougal’s wide chest. Why his closeness gave her comfort, she didn’t know, but she’d use him as long as he did not push her away.

  Dougal wiped smoky tears off Fiona’s face, while a chilly breeze blew against her legs. When his eyes lowered to the skin exposed by her ripped gown, she grabbed the destroyed edges with her uninjured hand. She was in no mood to battle another male’s unwanted attention.

  “Wait here,” Dougal demanded. He released her, and walked over and talked to several warriors. He returned to her side. “I told them what you said, and warned them. Do you need to see the healer?”

  The burned palm started aching again. She hadn’t noticed the pain, as if simply watching him walk away had seized all her attention, but now the pain was back with a vengeance. “You need not worry over someone like me. I can find me way. If I leave the village, and shift--”

  “Nay!”

  When villagers turned their heads toward him due to his outburst, she assumed, he leaned in to whisper.

  “You must not leave the safety of the village. Let me take you to the healer. She understands our kind.”

  “Our kind? You and me be nothing alike. Leave me alone!”

  CHAPTER 17

  Leaving Dougal with his mouth hanging open was not polite, Fiona knew, but too many things made no sense. Who was the female who had saved her? Where had she run off to, before Fiona could offer her thanks?

  “Psst.”

  Fiona gasped, and turned toward a figure who stepped from the shadows. Night had fallen, and the smoke kept her from making out the person’s face. Recalling the pirates, she took several steps backward.

  “Wait, me lady. I saved you, remember?” Her black-haired savior stepped out of the shadows. The night’s invisible breeze blew the smoke aside, and the moon’s silvery light lit on her features. She was pretty, with big blue eyes, a pert nose, and a shy smile.

  “I don’t know you, but I thank you for guiding me to safety. Did you see the man who attacked me? Though he tried to hurt me, I fear he be inside the burning building.”

  “Let him burn! Many months ago, that bastard stole something from me while I walked along the beach, south of here. I planned to search for him, now that the weather has turned warmer, but a wolf chased me, and I was forced to enter the village. I sensed he and his fiendish friends were in this village. I mean to get me property back!”

  Fiona stepped back, again, at the violence lacing the girl’s words. Having dealt with the rage of the man who accosted her in the middle of a smoke-filled building, she understood. Fingering the leather tie that held the trinket, hiding in her bodice, Fiona asked, “What, pray tell, did he take
?”

  The lass crossed her arms, and stamped a bare foot in the dirt. Her frown told a story Fiona wasn’t sure she wanted to hear. “He stole me heart.”

  I was not expecting that!

  “Come with me to the tavern? I need to find the healer, while you share your story. I would like to repay your heroism in saving me.”

  “You have an injury?” she asked, stepping so close that Fiona smelled the ocean breeze in her hair, and the salt on her skin.

  “Aye, ‘tis a burn on me hand. I have need of Mistress MacFingan’s herbs. A friend told me how she be able to make a poultice to cure most anything.” Fiona resumed her trek through the village, across the empty square, and onto the tavern’s porch. Unna stood, hands on her hips, scolding Fiona. “Did you scare off all the men? Where be everyone?”

  “Do not chastise her,” her new friend said, “as a fire be consuming the blacksmith shop. ‘Tis where all the men be, and what nearly killed this lass.” The stranger pointed at Fiona.

  Fiona slipped past a startled Unna, and entered the tavern. Her savior quietly followed. Blackie stood behind the bar, leaning his forearms across the empty wood surface.

  “I smell smoke. Fiona? Be it you bringing that smell inside me tavern? What happened to your dress?”

  Fiona clutched the ripped edges tighter. “A pirate set fire to the blacksmith’s shop,” she lied, fearing Dougal was the cause. “I escaped with the help of this lass.” Fiona turned to the pretty stranger. “I did not catch your name.”

  “I did not throw it.” She turned to Blackie. “You may call me Isobel. I be related to Gow. He be injured, I heard?”

  Blackie nodded, but acted mesmerized. She was nice looking, for a female, but was she something more? Fiona tried to see if she could be an otherworldly. Unfortunately, in her human body, her ability to sense other shifters was as poor as her sense of smell.